


King of Iron, King of Steel

by dread_thehalfhanded



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Foltest is really bad at relationships, Implied/Referenced Incest, M/M, Misogyny, Past Relationship(s), Pre-Canon, Public Sex, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, There's smut in here somewhere too I guess, daddy issues if you squint, this is also the story of why roche is so grumpy all the damn time, title from Hadestown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:00:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 14,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26133847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dread_thehalfhanded/pseuds/dread_thehalfhanded
Summary: The crown weighs heavy on Foltest, years after the death of his greatest love.Roche is only a young man, with little to his name, and he has not learned yet what it means to love… or to lose.
Relationships: Foltest/Vernon Roche
Comments: 44
Kudos: 50





	1. Chapter 1

Cherry blossoms swept onto the cobblestones of the castle courtyard, and Foltest’s gaze followed them without truly seeing where they fell. White stars, hurtling gorgeous in their flight, only to burst against the stone like so much empty dust, swept away into silence. Wind brushed the shoulders of his doublet, his dented forehead, the grey corners just starting in his beard.

He watched the flowers fall, and saw another courtyard, another spring. A girl with golden hair, who refused to laugh when his jokes weren’t funny, who slapped him back just as hard, and who saw him for more than his title.

Little prince, they’d called him. Little princess, they’d called her. But to each other, to each other only, they had been just Adda. Just Foltest. Simple as a farm boy, guileless as a peasant maiden.

Ten years. Ten years today, she’d been gone.

\---

The crown glittered on the table, and Foltest hated it.

Ornate. Gleaming. A glorified shackle. The symbol of every royal duty, every hideous privilege that had been thrust on him since birth—and not even nice to look at, more like a drunk dwarf had cobbled together all the shiniest items in the cast-off pile.

All around, a loathsome symbol. _One Henselt might like, but no other._

He sank lower in his chair, and in his cups, soaking in self-pity. He flexed his hand around his goblet, watching the veins move in the low firelight, and wondered bitterly what else such a hand could have held, if it had not held the reins of the world. _Or all the world that mattered._

The role had passed to him young, younger than many, given to him without his asking, like everything else. _Given things my whole sorry life,_ he reflected, rolling around the stem of his empty goblet as though it held the answers to everything. _Not something most would complain about, but—_

Land, gold, subjects, responsibilities, expectations. Women. All of it, chosen for him.

For a king, surprisingly few things truly sit in your control. _For all the glamor of the role, the neighboring kingdom will go to shit whether you will it or no, the plague will come and ravish your lands, and through it all the nobles still look to you to produce the heir of tomorrow._

He chuckled low in his chest, for all there was no one there to hear him. _That went well, didn’t it?_

 _Damned things, anyway,_ he thought. He could choose, oh yes—to eat chicken or beef, drink wine or beer. _But what does it matter, when nothing important is ever left to you?_

His father had said it best, once, long ago. “We wear the crown, so that no one else has to.”

The worlds range in his head, decades old, and he glared at it once more, petulantly.

_Wear the crown, so that there is someone to direct questions toward. A king’s a glorified senior clerk. And everyone does always seem to want something. Or, almost everyone._

The knock on his door startled him out of his thoughts, and he straightened up. Late at night, like this, there were only so many people who would dare come calling at his bedroom door, and none of them were people he wanted to see.

“Come in,” he said anyway.

The young man that entered without bowing made him smile, and he found he did not mind this particular audience so much.

“Roche.”

“Your Majesty,” said Roche, with as little inflection as possible, it seemed.

“It’s late,” growled Foltest, but the words had no venom to them.

“You asked for a report as soon as I had one, and here it is.”

Foltest snorted, taking in the severe face, the precise jaw, the irritating hat.

“Yes, and I meant within reasonable hours, sirrah.”

“Didn’t say that, so here I am.”

Roche shrugged; all his twenty-something years evident in that blatantly disrespectful dismissal. Anyone else would have had him drawn and quartered, or at least banished, on the spot. Arrogance was a dangerous trait in any subordinate, let alone one in a king’s service. But Foltest had found that he appreciated such candor.

“Well, report away, commander.”

Foltest noted with some amusement how Roche straightened up and preened at the title. Always the lowest born that cared the most about rank and title when they had it, but you’d never know it to look at him. All business all the time, and when most men his age thought only of cups and cunts.

“As requested, the Baron Von Velen has been under surveillance since early spring, when we first began to suspect him of certain dealings in the South…”

Roche hurried his words out, spitting each one like it might turn and fight at any moment. He did everything in a hurry, reflected Foltest, thinking of his early combat training. They had to teach him not to drop the sword and dive in with his fists at every opportunity, biting and scratching. Watching the quick pink lines of his mouth fold together, Foltest wondered idly if he ever slowed down, long enough to sleep or fuck or do whatever he did to enjoy himself.

“When was the last time you took some time off?” he asked, out loud, the comment betraying his wandering attention.

Roche stopped mid-sentence.

“What?"

“You look terrible.”

“Thank you?” Roche dropped his eyes, but continued steadfastly, “As I was saying, with eyes in the Market Quarter and the left keep, our hands are tied until extraction, but with so much unrest in the area, the situation has become untenable. If he were to successfully foster a smear campaign, the results could be disastrous. I propose an aggressive move, designed to cut off..."

He sat and listened to what might have been the first or last fourth of the proposal, but it was cut short. Thankfully. 

"Are you listening to me... Your majesty?"

Foltest laughed, an unexpected warmth overflowing in his chest. No one else would _dare._

"We've been over this. I trust your judgement but my patience does not extend to your speeches. If you want to mount an attack on the Baron, then I am with you. We will take a regiment or two and take care of it. I’ll go with you myself."

"How will you know if I'm right, if that’s even what we should do, if you don't--"

"I will read the report. At a later date. Also, I trust you.”

Roche smiled, a quick thin quirk of his mouth, easily missed. 

"I endeavor not to disappoint."

Foltest grinned back, as if they were only comrades in the field after all.

"Drink with me? You could use a break.” 

_Don’t make me spend this evening alone. Again._

Roche ran a hand over his face and sighed, and Foltest half-expected him to turn him down. The thought was pleasantly welcome, that Roche might not feel the need to perform the most basic civilities for him.

But he didn’t, and nodded instead to the half-empty bottle on the table before the fire. 

"Might as well. We have a long road tomorrow."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This idea has been living in my brain rent-free, so now you all get to suffer with it too. 
> 
> Set shortly before Foltest’s liaison with the Baroness La Valette, and after Roche has been in Foltest’s service for some time.


	2. Chapter 2

They heard it first, the rough slaps on skin against skin and the unmistakable ecstasy of a trained professional.

 _A week on the road, and already it has come to this_ , thought Foltest, realizing what it was a moment after Roche, if the purse of his lips was anything to go by.

“Boys will be boys, aye?” he said, only half listening as they wound through the twisted tents. The canvas didn’t muffle much, but in a camp of stinking, shitting, drinking, snoring soldiers, sound had a way of getting lost.

This, however, was unambiguous, and Foltest toyed for a moment with the idea of replacing all the camp tents with thicker, better materials, when they rounded a corner—

And came straight upon a man, balls deep in the fluttering blue mass of a whore in full business getup, a slap-slapping away in the middle of the camp, bent over two stacked crates. Foltest froze in the space between tents, half-hidden by the flapping canvas of an opening. Transfixed, he stared like a boy at the movement of cock to cunt, the smallest squelching in the crisp air, the pink paint on the woman’s cheeks.

He didn’t see them. The suddenness of the moment, the tender age of the soldier, the color of the woman’s dress, all took him back in a moment to another scene—a younger boy, and a much younger girl, playing at being grownups in the palace of their childhood. Tousled hair thrown out in a golden wave, the sharp bite of her laugh as she teased him for being stupid again.

How he missed her.

“What the FUCK is going on here?”

Roche’s sharp bark cut the edge from his thoughts, and he jerked back to the moment, where a sweaty pikeman had his cock out in public. The soft thoughts of Adda, of her blonde hair against his pillow, left as quickly as they came. Rage filled the place they left, at having such a pure thing touched by the crass scene before them. _Haven’t touched a woman since, nor do I intend to, and these men take, and take, and take as it pleases them._

“Thought it was pretty obvious,” grinned the man, barely past boyhood, blinking stupidly around at Roche without stopping the feverish movement of his hips.

Foltest felt ill for a moment, bizarrely, but Roche felt no such thing it seemed, as his shoulder twitched. A small motion, but Foltest knew what it meant, and a moment later, he pulled his fist back and simply decked the man, hard enough to separate the coupling. The man went stumbling backwards, cursing, while the woman grinned at Roche.

“Now, wait ya turn, Mister,” she started.

“Get out,” said Roche, taking her arm and roughly shoving her to her feet. “He pay already?”

She nodded.

“Then go.”

She winked at Roche again, and then pulled her skirts down again and turned to shuffle off, already looking between the tent rows for her next customer. She hadn’t seen him, Foltest realized, neither of them had.

“What’d you do that for?” snarled the man, sourly tucking himself away and never taking his eyes off the woman’s retreating back. Anyone else, he might have fought back, but Roche was not known for his scruples or his sweet temper.

“In your tent, or not at all,” said Roche, curtly, already turning away. “You never know who could come around this corner. If I see this again, twenty lashes.”

The man glared at him, but said nothing.

Roche turned as the man left, opening his mouth for what might have been an apology, but something in Foltest’s face stopped him.

\---

In his own tent, Foltest starting swearing before the flaps closed.

“Soldiers, yes, whores, yes, long road with little hope at the end of it, hard day’s work, I understand. But why in broad _ploughing_ daylight??”

He kicked the trunk at the foot of his bed, and cursed as his foot hit the end of his steel toed boots. Hopping gingerly on one foot, he saw Roche out of the corner of his eye, face turned away in something that might pass for privacy.

The gesture, however small, made him feel ashamed, and even angrier. 

Rage boiled up inside him, even as he felt himself childish in his envy of what other men could have and he could not. _Yet everyman jack of them would kill to stand where I stand, drink my beer, have my women, sit on my throne._

“Plough it all,” he said again, and sighed.

Roche did not seem effected by his mood, accustomed to it by long service and, frankly, having seen far worse in his time. His response was quick, dramatic, and efficient.

“I’ll see to it that they stop, sir. Have all the whores sent away, with strict order to keep any women out of the camps—unless they have marching orders.”

“No, no. Those men need an outlet,” said Foltest, a note of longing slipping through more than he liked. “Let them have them, as long as they’re… decent about it.”

Roche raised his head and regarded him cautiously, then, as one might approach a wounded boar.

“Shall I have a girl or two sent for you?”

“NO!”

The viciousness of the word startled them both, and Foltest cleared his throat afterward, and added, “No, no that won’t be necessary.”

Roche nodded, seeming to acquiesce, but his eyes narrowed and he paced forward a step or two, years of interrogation giving him the instinct for weakness.

“Forgive me, majesty, that was foolish. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you with a woman since…”

Foltest sighed again, and sank into the ornate chair at his ornate field desk that he rarely used anyway. Such things were better left to the men who understood them.

He ran his hands over his face, pushing up the golden circlet that haunted his days.

“It’s been… a long time, since I was with anyone, Roche. Man or woman. You’re not wrong.”

He couldn’t see Roche’s face when he said “man”, and all that implied, and he was glad of it.

But Roche, business as ever, simply asked: “Would you prefer a male, then?”

Foltest smiled.

“No, Roche. Thank you for your attentiveness, as ever, but please don’t strain yourself over my cock. It’ll keep.”

He did look up then, and did not miss the quick flush that flitted across the commander’s cheeks for a moment at that particular phrasing. Gone as quick as it came, a sweet shadow in the dim candlelight, and Foltest kept on smiling long past the point of decorum. Who was there to care?

He thought the boy might add another suggestion, from the way his lips twisted in thought, but he said only, “Of course, sire.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize my chapters are very short. sorry.


	3. Chapter 3

“Do you know what I saw in Adda?”

He tried to say it conversationally, and when they had put some distance between themselves and the rest of the column trotting under the sun, but Roche started at the question. _Too loud, too sudden, no preamble. I’ve started the deer before the hounds are ready for it. Damn._

Roche answered only after a quick, hunted glance at their surroundings and another at Foltest’s face, as if to see if he was in jest. Foltest almost laughed at the pressing fear in the young face. _I have lived with this shame more than half my life, I know when I want to speak of it._

“No, sir."

The moment of decision teetered before them, Roche gracefully letting him have an out, one last chance to say _nevermind_. But Foltest found he wanted to continue, wanted the words out.

Foltest cleared his throat, and began, quietly, “Years ago. When I was young, much younger than you, she was the only woman who didn’t want something from me. We’d grown up together, and when all the other maidens were falling over themselves to spread their legs or give their favors or catch the eye of the heir of the realm, she alone had nothing to do with them. Wouldn’t give me the time of day if I was an ass. Even the kitchen girls looked at me with this expectation, as if I ought to put a hand up their skirts at any moment, whether they willed it or no.”

He sighed.

“Adda alone asked nothing from me, and when she spent time with me, enjoyed my company, I felt I’d done something to earn it. And that was enough.”

Roche nodded, gaze fixed on his horse’s ears, smooth brow crinkled as if he unraveled the answers to a knotty problem with long study.

“After… Everything, with her, there was no one else. I grieved: and who would have me, anyway? King or no, when the kingdom is convinced of your… perversion, who will bed you willingly? But the expectation that I would try never went away. The fear is always there.

And I have not wanted a woman since. I am long past looking for flaws in my character, but I do wonder if it is not some strange illness. I simply… do not want.”

Before Roche could answer that, or suggest a remedy too close to home, he added, “Men, while not displeasing to my eye, would go no way towards the issue of an heir. Such are my duties.”

Foltest kept to himself the knowledge that most days, men were all that caught his eye. No need to dig the hole deeper with someone who might not look at him without disgust when this was over.

“Do you see? I appreciate your concern on the matter, but I am not likely to take another woman. And I wanted you to understand why. I can’t explain this to any of my court, which proposes marriages to me on a bi-weekly basis, but I thought that you might understand.”

He stopped, waiting for a response, a censure, for Roche to tell him he didn’t want to hear about this depravity and really just sod off already. Did he think he would understand? He wasn’t sure. _Gods,_ how he loved that uncertainty.

But the man just nodded, looking down at the road, the thick waving grass belying the swamps that hid not far behind in the thick of the forest.

“Seems reasonable enough. Though I don’t imagine that explanation went far at the time.”

“No, and it never has. They don’t understand what it’s like.” He took a deep breath, searching for words to convey the gravity of what he wanted to say.

“As king. You become a thing, not a person. A conquest, a purse, the steel fist of authority. I am lord to some, father to others—” he saw Roche flinch, almost imperceptibly “—god to some, king to all. Not one of them sees the head below the crown.”

For the first time, he looked directly at Roche, nearly a head shorter, his lithe frame swaying with perfect rhythm in time with his mount. He met the commander’s eyes, dark brown flecked with gold, a rising panic held in the creases of his young face. 

“My flaws,” Foltest continued, the words falling over themselves, long pent, “My injustices, my weaknesses—I cannot have any, I am the king. I could commit the most heinous crimes known to man and have no one's censure. That's what I've always appreciated about you, Vernon. You tell it like it is.”

The man relaxed again, just barely. A wrist unclenched; a jaw muscle loosened, and he looked over his shoulder again to check their distance from the rest of the column. _And perhaps to hide his tells._

"Common-born, you remember," was all Roche said, dropping his gaze back to the safety of his horse’s lazy ears.

"That means nothing. Commoners are as bad as the rest. Half the common folk would light altars in my name,” snorted Foltest, “If I showed the slightest indication to walk among them with my tits out, bestowing blessings like Melitele.”

"With your tits out? They'd be right to do so."

Foltest blinked, and turned to look at him. _No one else in the ploughing world would dare._

Vernon raised his hands, reins coiled in one fist, a half-smile playing on his face, “No offense meant to your Royal person, of course."

The words came laced in sarcasm, as if daring him not to look any deeper, lest he become the butt of the joke himself. _A jest, and nothing more_. Yet Foltest wanted, for a brief, insane moment, for this boy who had no fear to mean it.

"None taken," was all he said, as gentle as he knew. To his own ears, his voice sounded no better than a growl, but tenderness was not a guise he wore often now.

Roche looked back to the road with the smallest smile at the corners of his mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what is canon, anyway? I've certainly never heard of it.


	4. Chapter 4

Taking the castle steps three at a time, sword poised before him edged and gleaming, Foltest felt more alive than he had in years. Enough to make him wish his nobles would collude with Nilfgaard more often, if it meant he got to get out and be useful. He glanced up at the great wooden doors that closed off the inner sanctum of the keep once more, and hoped dearly that Roche’s men had found a way inside.

Beside him, Roche ran lean as any hunting hound, as intent on the goal as himself. Sweat beaded on his forehead, the chaperon sliding to one side, and brown curls sneaking out—plastered to his hot skin. His right hand clutched steel, and his left swung with every stride. For all his small form and terrible mouth, he looked, at times, the perfect soldier.

The doors to the inner keep swung open at the last possible moment, and two blue-striped uniforms beckoned them inside.

In the sudden darkness, he pulled up, straining to see while Roche plunged on ahead. As his eyes adjusted, he heard the tell-tale smack of steel on flesh—flat, not meant to kill—and a cry of pain. He shuffled forward, blinking, to see Roche holding the Baron’s arms behind his back, knife at his throat. How long did that take? A few seconds, not even that. And the fate of my kingdom hung in the balance over this man?

The baron was old, skinny, underfed for all the luxuries his station afforded him. Foltest appraised him in the flickering torchlight, as a blue striped woman barely older than a girl brought forward a light. The baron’s clothes were simple, outdated, but sewn from expensive cloth that denoted his station. _A penny-pincher,_ he decided silently, watching the man’s fear plain in his face, _with no thought beyond his own pockets and willing to line them however possible. No loyalty to king or clan, just his own coffers._

“Traitor to the realm,” he said out loud, viewing the spindly man with distaste, noting the spittle stuck to his jaw. _Some men are so graceless in death._ “Kill him.”

Roche did, the quick movement of his wrist alone almost faster than the eye. Blood streamed down pale skin, over folds of skin and fabric, and only a last gurgle told of the man’s parting words. Foltest felt no guilt over this death—it was simply what must be done. _Would be a poor king indeed who slept soundly while traitors lived out their days, and the people trembled._

Nearby, a woman’s wail went up, shrill and echoing from the rafters, and Roche gestured to his men to pursue it even as he let the Baron’s body drop.

“Nicely done, commander,” said Foltest, eyeing the golden chain around Roche’s neck. “I knew I gave you that for a reason.”

Roche just grinned, and did not even bother to hide his pleasure at the unexpected praise.

“You gave me this because I’m good at what I do.”

Sheathing his sword, Foltest couldn’t dispute this. His left leg trembled as he stepped to Roche’s side, reminding him after that charge up the steps: He wasn’t young anymore.

Two blue striped men dragged an overdressed woman in the highest of court finery before him, uncaring that they dragged her skirts through the blood pooling on the floor.

“The baroness, majesty.”

“What shall we do with her?”

It took Foltest a moment to realize that Roche had directed the question at him.

“Hmm,” he said aloud, stalling. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

The woman wailed again, a little more mousy brown hair coming untucked from her elaborate head covering and falling over her voluminous chest. Closer, she appeared decades younger than her husband, with half a life or more left to live.

“I didn’t know! I swear I didn’t.” Her voice came out unusually husky for a woman, deep and sensual. “Whatever he did, I didn’t have anything to do with it. I’ll pay, I’ll do whatever you ask. Anything.”

She thrust out her heaving chest a little further, probably catching that he couldn’t take his eyes from it, nor could most of the men in the room.

“Let me make it up to you,” she said breathily, “I promise I’ll be good.”

The Baroness did paint a stunning picture, he’d give her that. Every inch the damsel in distress, hair fallen over her cheeks, wide green eyes blinking up at him, streaked with enough fallen tears to hit the moment just right, without spoiling her looks. Breasts heaving in a too-tight corset.

Foltest found it all just too much. Maybe a man ten years ago might have done something wicked and particularly kingly, but he found the expectation of the moment too heavy.

“Take what you want, my king,” she said in a soft voice just for him.

At that, he laughed, and the moment dissolved.

“What I want? I want a beer.” Several officers in the corners of the room chuckled, but most had the decency to keep a straight face.

“Shackle her, take her to the dungeon,” he said, averting his eyes from her stricken face, “See that she’s kept well.”

“And don’t. Touch,” added Roche. “It should go without saying, but I’ve met you louts.”

Several men glared at him, but all turned to their duties, and led the woman away.

Roche grinned at him, as though a body didn’t lie on the floor between them. As though he did this every day—which, to be fair, he might.

“Shall we get you that beer?”

\---

Seated in the recently-deceased Baron’s office, Foltest kicked his feet up on the desk and tipped back a mug of Redanian lager. Not the best, but not the worst drink he might have asked for, and well—conquerors can’t be choosers. Even if the conquered is a traitor to the crown.

Ostensibly, he’d come in to sort through papers for evidence of treachery, but the Baron had been very fond of small handwriting and elaborate ledgers. He’d found no hidden correspondence in the first five minutes, and had soon turned to reclining and savoring the spoils of war.

Roche would be around with his quick young eyes soon, and probably chastise him for his delinquency—and he looked forward to it.

“Majesty?”

Craning his neck around as the door opened, Foltest saw the young blonde girl who had infiltrated Roche’s ranks, rather than the man himself. A flicker of sour feeling dulled his satisfaction. _What is she doing here, anyway? What does a man like Roche see in a girl like this?_

“What?" he snapped. 

“Commander Roche wants to know if you found anything, sire.”

“A question for a question—what in Melitele’s name is a girl doing in my special forces?”

A little fire flashed in the woman’s eyes.

“I’d recommend asking Commander Roche, _sir_.” The last word carried far more menace than it had any right to, coming from such a small creature.

“I’m asking you.”

“You’re welcome to the training yard at any time sir, and I’ll gladly prove my prowess there,” she said, sticking out her chin. “I earned my place here.”

 _So, not Roche’s little whore, then?_ The little thing had challenged him to a duel, and that alone said something about what he saw in her—maybe more than she seemed.

“Tell Roche to come see me himself.”

The woman bowed, and a moment later Roche appeared in her place, looking somewhat on-edge. He wasted no time before speaking his mind, coming inside and shutting the door with his back.

“Ves tells me you owe her a… duel?”

Foltest laughed, “Yes, little slip of a thing challenged me to a duel in my own training yard when I asked her why there was a girl in my special forces. Seemed to take offense.”

Roche sighed at the sight of Foltest’s boots on the desk, and began sorting paperwork around his feet with alarming speed.

“She’s as good with a sword as any man, and a quicker study too. Only sixteen winters and already more than worth her keep, if a little testy. Can’t blame her.”

“Not misusing my resources to keep your lover warm, then?” countered Foltest, before he could think better of it.

Roche’s eyes flickered idly off the paper he was scanning without a trace of interest in the subject.

“Not my type. Also, she’s sixteen.”

“Stranger things have happened, and men are nothing but dogs. You know that as well as I do.”

“I appreciate your concern,” hummed Roche, flipping more pages, “but she earned her place.”

He looked up for a brief second, and met Foltest’s searching gaze, “And I disagree. I know a good man when I see one.”

His gaze fell on Foltest suddenly heavy and full of meaning, as if those few words could mean a thousand things, and Foltest had to look away from the intensity for a moment. He groped for something else in the room to steady himself against the weight of those words, and his gaze fell to the desk. Roche’s left hand lay splayed out, sun-bronzed and smooth, the beginnings of wrinkles just starting to form in the ridges of the muscle.

Roche looked down abruptly as if nothing had happened, and scanned the next sheet of numbers so small they wouldn’t fit on a pinky fingernail. Wavering, Foltest turned the words over in his mind. _Not his type?_ The stab of jealousy fell away as quickly as it had come. 

When he could find nothing to say, he simply covered Roche’s hand in his own. Foltest couldn’t have told you why he did it, only that the moment seemed heavy and ripe for it. _I want, and he wants nothing from me, and why should I not? I am the king._

Roche jolted at the touch, but continued to scan the paper, even as a rose-flush covered his cheeks.

They rested like that for a moment, Foltest watching the light play over the lines on the younger man’s face, until a knock sounded at the door, and they separated. If Foltest had been a younger man, or a more hopeful one, he might have thought Roche’s fingers reached infinitesimally for his as he pulled away.


	5. Chapter 5

“You ever seen a five-legged dog, sir?” the question came slurred from a near-unconscious man on the log to his left.

Foltest grinned, well and stupidly drunk along with most fighting men in a five-mile radius. Technically speaking, he could be inside the castle, on a soft bed, enjoying the spoils of conquest—alone. Probably should be. But the night was cool, and the summer air gentle, and the raucous laughter of the men _, his_ men, pierced even the thickest walls.

So, to the great protestations of his personal guard, he had gone for an evening walk. One that had led him out of the newly-captured castle and right to the first welcoming fireside he could find. His guards hovered as far away as he could get them to, under strict orders to leave him alone and enjoy themselves. Unlikely in any scenario.

But why shouldn’t he mingle? It wasn’t as if there was anyone to stop him. He could fancy himself just one of the men for a few hours.

“Haven’t. Have you?”

The man—Jarl? Jarend?—looked down, suddenly clearly doing some mental acrobatics about who he was talking to and whether he should continue. Foltest tried to look approachable and turned up the corners of his mouth, but another soldier, too far away to see his face, spoke before he could.

“No, but Shivers here has. Shivers, tell the man.”

A groan went around the campfire, all dozen men clustered in various states of dishevelment voicing their disapproval. Still, they fell silent afterwards expectantly.

Shivers, the biggest, meanest-looking man in their circle, twitched an eyebrow, and lifted a comically small mug to his gigantic face. After a long draught, he cleared his throat.

“So. In my younger days, when white snow still flowed down the rivers from the north, the great nine-fingered barbarian still roamed the land. In such times, a man craves the companionship of his friends, the arms of a woman, and the loyalty of a good hound. And barring the first two, a good dog will do for much. It was in those days that I set out to find me such a one…”

For all their groaning, the men had fallen silent and listened, intent on the tale at hand. Foltest hummed, cloak still thrown up to hide his face from anyone sober enough to look more closely, and listened along with the rest.

_A bard in the making, though you’d never think it to look at him._

Glancing upward as Shivers spoke, he noticed for the first time the familiar slim blue silhouette leaning against a tree a few yards away, watching the scene unfold. Arms crossed, gaze narrow down a thin nose, Roche looked almost disapproving were it not for a strange, fond, unplaceable look in his eye.

Foltest met, and held, his gaze for a long moment, unconscious of Shivers’ melodramatic impression of a dog farting, and the guffaws that followed. The dark eyes, the open, devil-may-care posture—those were all that held his eye. Whatever choice Foltest made would be his own, and Roche would go to bed happy either way.

(His thoughts helpfully supplied the visual of Roche in his own bed, the royal four-poster that had been cold and empty for years. How he might look framed naked against the falling curtains, how his hair might feel under his hands. How he would come and go as he pleased, without a care for what his king said.)

Foltest stumbled to his feet, upsetting a mug, but not stopping to care.

“Gentlemen, it’s been a pleasure.”

A few groans followed his departure, but little more, a fact that pleased him even as he strode as purposefully as it was possible to stride while the world rocked gently back and forth.

Roche’s face opened for him as he approached, a smile already forming along his shadowed features.

“Enjoying yourself, playing truant?”

Without answering, Foltest took Roche’s arm without pausing in stride, and marched him straight backwards into the trees, brush catching at their feet. To his undying credit, Roche allowed himself to be pulled along in such a way that did not inhibit Foltest’s stride—in fact he may have borne Foltest’s weight on more than one occasion. To hell with that, it simply meant he could be pressed up against a tree that much faster.

He shoved Roche gracelessly against the closest trunk, so hard that his head hit with a hard smack. 

“Ow—” was all he had time to get out before Foltest fell against him, seizing his jaw between both his hands, delving deep into that golden mouth.

Roche started only once, and then opened to his kiss with a soft moan.

Chasing the sound, Foltest tilted the young man’s jaw just enough to lick inside, to taste all the strange independence, the careless youth in him. To see if he could chase the summer, and hold it in his mouth. They strained against each other, as Roche caught more fully up to what was going on and got his own tongue involved, and after a long moment Foltest drew back for a breath.

Roche took a long, shaking inhale, and Foltest could smell him, the heat of him so close, the scratch of stubble against his palms as he stroked down his jaw, his neck, to the knot of muscle at his shoulders. He grasped at whatever he could fill his hands with, and Roche simply let him. So, he kissed him again, for his trouble, and this time Roche met him halfway.

 _He knows me, he knows and he does not care_ —came the jumbled thoughts. _The one thing in all this place I am already enough for._

One hand reached up to jerk back the blue cloth that threatened to slide over Roche’s eyes, pushed against the tree as he was, and he did not count on that moving his head with it. But, presented with the slender neck, who was he to complain? He laved down the offered throat with his tongue and his teeth, the soft catching breath of his little commander music to his ears.

Reaching beneath the blue tunic, he paused for a moment, blood pounding, to see if it was not too much.

“May I?” he ground out, every consonant catching.

Roche looked up at him without speaking, chest heaving. Perhaps his face held answers, but Foltest could not see them. In the dark, he could barely see the outline of his nose, his jaw—but he could feel the pressing need in his breath, the lines of his body. Perhaps that was answer enough, but he needed to know.

“Well?”

“Yes.”

Foltest touched him. Thick hands, palms, against the softest, smoothest skin, lean and firm abdomen, slipping down to the slender buttress of his hips.

Their breaths came heavily together, and he knew Roche must smell the liquor on his breath. He almost apologized, this to this lovely, fearless thing under him. But even that was still beyond him.

Instead, he fell to his knees, and had nuzzled his way up Roche’s leg with singular focus before the hand on his head stopped him.

“Not—” panted Roche— “Not that this isn’t everything I—but someone could see us.” He nodded towards the firelight just behind them, the heads bobbing, Shivers voice droning on not even out of earshot.

“Don’t care,” mumbled Foltest, fingers beginning at Roche’s belt.

Sighing deeply, Roche took both his hands in his own.

“I care. Someone will come looking for you any moment now, and I don’t want to be interrupted if—if this is—happening.”

Tugged upwards again, Foltest growled in some frustration, but came up anyway, Roche catching him as he nearly fell sideways. Never graceful as he ought to be. Half-turned again, he could see that Roche was right, several of his guards had turned to whisper to each other and even now two were rising to come after him, the lilies of his service striking on their chests.

He turned back to Roche and chased his mouth again, wanting more before he had to let this go again. _And why should I fear any of them? Let them find me. Let them stop me. I will take what I want with sword, with steel, and who would deny me?_

None of this translated well to his silent but desperate attempts to get Roche out of his armor, and his hands were gently pushed away. Roche let him press one final kiss to his lips, sighing softly as it fell, but the moment he tried to lick any deeper he pushed him away.

“Go back to your men,” he said, gruff and impersonal, loud enough for his guard to hear and be drawn to their position. “You’re drunk. We can continue this conversation tomorrow should you desire to revisit the subject.”

As the voices of the guards came closer, Roche squeezed his hand and slipped into the night.

Surrounded by his guard, world still spinning a little around him, Foltest noted with some satisfaction that at any other time, on any other night, Roche would have insisted on seeing him safely to the castle walls. Tonight, he’d left him alone and unsupervised in the darkness. _Such a breach of duty. Terrible. I should punish him for that._

Someone plied him with a waterskin on the way back to the castle, and he could barely stop smiling long enough to take a drink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> spot The First Law easter egg, anyone?
> 
> also technically a Beowulf reference too. if anyone gets both leave me a comment so I can call you a nerd.


	6. Chapter 6

“I disagree. The Baron’s treachery may be a singular occurrence, and we cannot prove that he had accomplices. It would be absurd to punish the entire northern half of the kingdom over one man’s mistake. Let’s not overreact.”

“Prove? Proof be damned, by the time we have proof, there will be an army on our borders and half the nobles will be flying black flags when they do. How’s that for proof, Marigold?”

The red-haired sorceress smiled smoothly, and looked around the table, her young face and wide eyes disarming every single one—except her blonde counterpart, Metz. _The fools. Well done._

“That seems a touch dramatic, don’t you think, gentlemen?”

Murmurs of agreement and disagreement flew around the table, some nodding and some not. Foltest nodded automatically, mirroring the slow nod of his redheaded advisor. His head pounded, and this debate had gone on for hours—despite the fact that he had made a decision in the first ten minutes.

It would not, however, be advisable to let his council know this. They got fussy when left out… The only problem was that he had to pretend to be interested the conversation.

“Well, what would you propose then, sorceress?”

The heavyset bald man who spoke, Llwyn, was one of Foltest’s favorite advisors: for the sole reason that he usually moved the discussion forward, instead of back. Albeit at a snail’s pace.

Fixing his gaze evenly on the back of Marigold’s chair—which she was perched in like a small bird, the high back dwarfing her—his mind wandered. He knew she would speak for several minutes, and her opinions were not usually too far removed from his own. And it behooved him to agree with his council members when he could. All he had to do was wait.

Three days they’d been back, and only two of them in session, and already he had the most miserable headache. Worse, he had not seen Roche since that night in the woods. The man had been notably absent from his side the next day, and all the long march back—even when he’d gone looking for him, the Blue Stripes he had found just shrugged. One of them had grinned at him with tobacco-stained teeth like so much blood, and the sight had been so off-putting that he had not returned.

Sometimes he wondered if creating a Special Forces Unit separate from the main body of the army had been a good idea. At the time, the Scoia'tael reigned in the forests only a few short miles from Vizima and their threat had become untenable. Now, however, with the elven bandits driven farther away from civilization… The Blue Stripes had become his go-to for covert operations of any sort, Scoia'tael, Kaedweni, or otherwise.

Sometimes it was nice to give orders without needing the approval of an entire room of courtiers. _If they are a little rough around the edges… Well, you get what you pay for._ And they got the job done, so no harm no foul.

He sank slightly lower in his seat, glowering at Bronibor, who had just opened his mouth to interrupt. _No, no further tangents, this meeting is long enough already._

A whole week riding back, and then three days here in the royal palace, and not a word. Not even the sight of Roche slipping around corners or fading into shadows or doing whatever it was spies did in their free time. Damn, but the man was good.

The one thing he hadn’t done was summon him, officially.

_If this is his idea of giving me space to reconsider, he should do some reconsidering himself._

The most likely scenario, he knew, was that he had read the situation that night entirely wrong, and enough drink in both of them meant that Roche had acquiesced to something he wouldn’t have normally agreed to. _Loneliness can drive a man to desperate things, and he may have just been happy to take an opportunity to get his dick wet._

That explanation should have satisfied. _But he wouldn’t have pushed me away. And he didn’t smell like drink._ And there was real hunger in him. The thought of rough sandpaper skin against his own flitted across his mind’s eye, the sound Roche had made when he pushed into his mouth the first time…

If nothing else, he wanted answers.

Keeping his face carefully blank, he considered, for a moment, the other likely possibility: That he could have simply scared the young man. He’d been a long time out of the courtship game, if he’d ever known how these things worked. Roche was what, still in his early twenties? Barely old enough for his command—if that, according to some—but more than capable. But still young enough to fear losing it should things go southwards with someone, _ugh_ , with the power to take it away from him.

That thought satisfied, though to confirm its truth he would have to get a hold of the slippery man _. Nothing for it. I’ll have to summon him. Officially._ He would do so the moment this meeting was over. Send for him in the office, ask for an update on… Something. _Make sure that he knows he, his command, his men, are safe, whatever happens between us. Yes, he’ll like that._

He wondered how, exactly, Roche might demonstrate his approval? On his knees? No, too servile, Foltest would never allow that. He pushed the thought away as quickly as it came, in all its pink-lipped choking splendor.

He would be satisfied with Roche in his arms again, catching him around his tapered waist, pressing him down against his desk. Perhaps he could hear that breath catch once again with pleasure, as he unbuckled his armor, piece by piece, serving him as a squire might, uncovering his secrets in heat and sweat.

Staring down into those endless eyes, he could see what he might have been, without the crown on his head and the leash around his neck. When Roche reached for him, he kissed a person, not a title: A man, and not a promise.

In his mind’s eye, he groaned against Roche’s red, red mouth, pressing his thigh between two lean ones, and swept everything he could reach off his desk, climbing—

“In conclusion, this will put us in an inarguably favorable position in both politics and trade. Your majesty?”

Foltest blinked back to the stuffy, overcrowded council chamber with a poorly-concealed scowl. Everyone was looking at him, and he felt hot, red, skin crawling with want, half-hard.

“That seems reasonable enough to me,” he said aloud, trying to look like he was carefully considering the subject at hand.

Marigold fixed him with a pointed gaze, and he shifted uncomfortably, always surprised by how perceptive she could be. As if she could read his mind, which he dearly hoped she couldn’t—for her sake if nothing else.

“Shall we sleep on it, and take a vote tomorrow?”

Dignity, salvaging, all that. He would find Marigold later and ask for the shortest possible explanation. Also, he looked like he was giving them a chance to have a voice, which was all that really mattered in the end. He could announce his decision regarding other potential treasons tomorrow, after the vote, no worse for wear.

The council nodded, some more enthusiastically than others, and began to pack up.

“Dismissed,” he said, fully intending to be the last to leave the room.

No need to let anyone else know where his mind had been—although frankly they might be more pleased than not that he had finally become interested in the pleasures of the flesh. Would only increase the frequency of betrothal propositions, and they were already running out of eligible women as it was.

\---

On the way to his office, Foltest stopped briefly in his apartments, leaving his nigh-unshakable retinue of personal guards outside. While none of them asked, he avoided their gazes all the same. _Avoiding my paperwork? Never._

Also, he wanted to peruse the Blue Stripes files he had left unread on his nightstand and figure out what on earth Roche could have been doing this whole time, and how to ask him about it. Without scaring him off, or insinuating that Roche had been avoiding him, even though he had. Not that he cared, exactly, but it _was_ his job to know what they were up to. 

Snagging an apple from the fruit tray on the table, he backed through his bedroom door easily, without looking—

Mid-afternoon light streamed through the open window; a window he’d left closed. Roche sat easily on the duvet, one booted foot thrown up on the carved wood, a coil of blue fabric in his hands, his head bare.

Foltest smiled. Roche did not.


	7. Chapter 7

Roche twisted the blue fabric in his hands, worrying at his lip, as Foltest closed the door behind him.

“I came to apologize, your majesty” he said, without preamble.

“What?”

“I’m sorry,” said Roche, gaze fixed on the fabric in his hands, twisting it into a cruel knot, over and over on itself. “I took advantage. I shouldn’t have acted how I did. I came here to apologize and ask you to forget it.”

He rose, bowed deeply than he ever had, and still without looking up, would have left the room if Foltest had not stood with his back against the only door.

The words battered against the gates of Foltest’s mind so fast he could hardly separate one from another, swarming there like flies on horseshit _._ More than anything the moment was wrong. Roche didn't apologize, to anyone, for anything. _Men have died under him and he wouldn't apologize to their mothers._

“Sit down,” he growled, crossing his arms, trying to buy time to think.

At that, Roche did look up, the real and quick fear in his eyes chastening Foltest’s quicker rage. He sat back down on the bed, back stiff, neck straight. His flashing brown eyes held a quiet acceptance behind the fear, no chasing desire, no craving hunger, just a kicked peace.

Unable to stand it, in two steps, Foltest crossed the room and knelt.

“You have nothing to apologize for.”

He took Roche’s hands in his own, separating the shaking fingers from the abused fabric. This, he could do. He knew how to shoulder hardship so that others might not—that, at least, was familiar territory.

“Whatever fault there is, is mine alone,” he said, looking up now into this young, young man’s eyes.

So close now, with the bright sun streaming in, he could see all the places where wrinkles might one day form, but had not yet. The short stubble that barely grew, enough to see a razor only once a week, if that. All soft skin, full cheeks, now that the chaperon did not hide the smooth lines of him.

A crease formed between Roche’s eyebrows as he started to pull away, and Foltest let him.

“You don’t mean that.”

“Yes, I do.”

He did not reach for him again, but swept instead his hand over the soft cheekbones, daring a touch he had not earned. Roche did not stop him, and the color rose in his face, those doe-soft eyes suddenly almost tender. Foltest thought he might die if he could not kiss him.

“If you don’t want to be here, like this, tell me so, and we will never speak of this again,” said Foltest, tongue tight behind his teeth.

Roche nodded, but did not speak. Closing his eyes, he let Foltest touch him, leaning in, the scrape of callus against cheek the only sound in that high room.

“Whatever passes between us, is only here,” Foltest pressed at the silence, “Your command is safe regardless, whatever happens. Your men, my country, those things are beyond this. They are safe whatever you say, so… Don’t let that sway you.”

He hoped that was enough. Out loud it sounded foolish, childish, even, to assume that such a man as this would care what anyone else thought of him, of whether he lived or died in the king’s service, let alone had a title or not. Roche did not care for such trivialities, he knew that—

Roche reached out for his collar, and pulled him in close, nose to nose, breath to breath. When he spoke, his voice cracked with some stirring emotion that Foltest could not place.

“I want to be here."

 _Yes,_ thought Foltest. _You do not ever do anything you do not want to. I know._

Foltest slid his arms slowly around Roche’s waist, and tipped his face up to kiss him. _Yet still, even here, it would be an honor and a privilege to hear "no" from your lips._

For a moment, heady with the scent of him, he did not know for which he hoped more.

In the moment of hesitation, Roche’s lips touched his, and for the barest moment there was only light skin brushed together like leaves falling against the surface of a frozen river. 

The ice shattered suddenly, and Roche lunged. Arms reached up to press against the back of Foltest’s head, dragging him in, the other grasping his heavy belt and pulling him forward with all the strength of a young willow. All willingness, he went, allowing Roche to pull him up and over him, chasing his mouth down onto the mattress.

They kissed slowly and with purpose for some time, Foltest knowing nothing but the burning need to taste this creature, the one thing in all Temeria he did not utterly own, chasing his small moans with his tongue _._

“Vernon,” he said, and Roche groaned under his hands.

Foltest pressed down on him, covering him with his hips, his chest, the full weight of him claiming what lay beneath. He more than covered Roche, highlighting again for all his posturing, how small his commander truly was. Bereft of even the added height of his hat—Foltest ran a hand through the close-cropped hair for good measure—Roche looked small and slender as a girl, for all he held so much death behind his eyes.

At the added weight, Roche opened his legs, one knee splaying out and up in an obscene welcome. Foltest slotted himself even deeper into him, firm against the hardness that answered his own, pleased, and Roche made a small, desperate sound, hips snapping up on instinct. Only leather and metal and cloth lay between them.

A chuckle was born somewhere in the back of Foltest’s throat, and he rose just enough to reach between them to part Roche’s armor at the seam. He palmed over Roche’s cock, gently, and watched him throw his head back and gasp as though he would come on the spot. _You too_? He thought it idly, fixed on the movement of Roche’s throat, _how long has it been?_

Heat pounded in Foltest’s blood, burning under his skin, and all he wanted was to hear that noise again.

“Vernon,” he said again, struggling with the weight of the word, “Let me?"

He did not know what he was asking, only that he wanted and would take whatever he could have. He tugged on the dark hose that clung to Roche’s hips on a prayer, belt shoved up as high as it would go.

“Fuck you,” said Roche, a guttering gasp, “Yes please.”

Foltest grinned and stripped the hose down to Roche’s ankles, catching it around his boots, as Roche flipped open his own belt with shaking hands, then up the buckles of his gambeson. The armor and tunic parted, slipping open around his erect cock, flushed and dark, then further opening to reveal a bare chest lined with rangy muscle.

Faced with the sudden realization that he had never actually put one of those in his mouth before, Foltest wrapped his hand around Roche’s cock experimentally, rolling his hand over the head as though it was his own. _Technically, perhaps it is,_ whispered dark in the back of his mind, and he pushed the thought away.

Roche moaned like a dying man and covered his face with his hands.

Encouraged, Foltest stroked him a few more times, then lowered his hips and ground them together again. The sharp intake of breath told him all he needed to know, and he rolled his hips again, and again, and again, pausing only to strip himself of his own hose and finally feeling their skin together.

Wrapping one arm around Roche’s waist, he began to thrust in earnest, sloppy dry thrusts against belly and sex. The words thundered in his head to the rhythm of their bodies together, _yes, yes, yes. I took you from the streets, I trained you, I made you everything you are and you still won’t look at me without a snarl. A dog would be more grateful._

He licked a strip over his own fingers and wrapped his hand around them. Bending low, low, hand gripping their cocks together like a vise, he snapped his hips and growled into Roche’s ear.

“ _Vernon._ ”

A moan tore from Roche’s lips, and Foltest swallowed it as Roche came all over his hand in hot, sticky white spurts. His whole body shuddered with it, undone, sweaty and trembling beneath him.

Foltest stroked him through it, the sudden and utter surrender so strange and lovely on the face that wore defiance like a second skin. When Roche was done—with a sigh and a flop of satisfaction—he rose on his knees and stripped his cock with a fever, looking down at Roche with his tunic open, debauched and sticky on his own bed.

Biting his lip with intense focus, moments later Foltest came all over Roche’s bare chest, narrowly missing the folds of his uniform rucked up around his shoulders. 

He came back to himself to find Roche on his elbows, watching him with his lips slightly parted, eyes hooded. A spot of cum had spattered onto his cheek, and Foltest wiped it away with his clean hand before swinging off of him and lying to the side.

Roche turned his head to follow him, eyes still unfocused and hazy, and might have rolled to follow if he hadn't been covered in their spend. As it was, he put his hand out, and Foltest took it without hesitation, their fingers lacing together. 

Voice slurred with pleasure and creeping sleep, Roche asked, almost shyly, "Will you want to do this again?"

Foltest hummed in acquiescence, and pressed a kiss to the back of his hand. He knew what he wanted.

"Yes," he said, "I want to be inside you."

Hope and fear together fluttered through Roche's gaze, but he said only:

"I'd like that."


	8. Chapter 8

Silence poured through the sleeping castle in the soft air before dawn. The stone walls that held so many did not often know true quiet, a soldier’s tread never far away.

Blinking awake in the dark blue of morning, Foltest opened his eyes to the soft warm weight in his arms. Utterly naked, satin sheets balled just below his waist, Roche lay on his side, a tangled heap of limbs pressed up against him like a cat to flagstones in the sun.

Running a hand down the smooth plane of his side, Foltest listened for a moment to the tempo of his snores. They had been doing this for weeks now—whatever this was—and still he had only coaxed Roche to stay the night with him a handful of times. His men would miss him, he said, like they were children who couldn’t put themselves to bed of their own accord.

Selfishly, jealously, he wrapped himself tighter around the gold of Roche, his and his alone.

At the tightening grasp, Roche started awake, a quick tightening of shoulders followed by a slow relax as he came awake and realized where he was.

“Good morning,” rumbled Foltest into his hair.

He hummed, face-first in a pillow, neither a response nor a greeting itself, and only reached up for Foltest’s hand to wrap it further around himself.

“I have to leave soon.”

“I know,” said Roche, still speaking to the pillow on his side of the sprawling bed. “Don’t remind me.”

Sighing, Foltest sat up and swung out of bed, bare feet on the cold floor he could feel through the rug. He still wasn’t used to sleeping naked, and that included his feet.

“Won’t be long,” he said, fishing through his wardrobe for a robe, “Impress some nobility, visit of state, try not to offend anyone.”

Roche hummed again. “Good to know someone reads my reports.”

“This was your idea?”

“Part of it.”

He looked over his shoulder to see Roche sit up and yawn lazily, sleep still licking at the corners of his eyes. His hair stood up in all directions over his head like a hedgehog, and Foltest laughed at him at he turned back to the cabinet.

“Put a hat on before you go anywhere. I have you to thank for this awful diplomatic excursion?”

“If you look at it in a certain light. It’s a good plan—” he heard rustling and regretted that Roche probably also had duties that required clothing—"Remind them how nice you are and how much gold flows into their lands by not dealing below the Pontar, makes them more likely to say no thank you next time Nilfgaard shows up on their doorstep with flowers.”

Foltest snorted, finally wrapping himself in something warm and red. 

“Is that how it works?”

He turned around again to find that Roche had not gotten up, and instead had stretched himself out over the bed on his belly, round ass bare to the world. He cocked an eyebrow at Foltest, who groaned deep in his throat.

“You’re killing me.”

“Actually, that is the very opposite of my job,” said the rascal, sitting up again with a casual disregard of his very prominent erection.

He evaded Foltest’s grasp with a deft dodge, and stepped along cold stone on tiptoe for his own clothing.

“Ah-ah-ah, I also have duties,” he said, sweeping blue fabric and pieces of armor off the floor near the door. They had been in a hurry.

Foltest caught him around the waist anyway, and pulled him flush against his hips.

“Isn’t your first duty to Temeria?” he asked, lips pressed against his earlobe.

The tip of his erection slipped over the cleft of his ass just as Roche began to answer, and the word came ground out with effort.

“Yyy-es…”

“And am I not Temeria proper?”

Roche’s undoubtedly patriotic answer was lost in the sharp rap at the door, and a high shrill voice, calling,

“Morning! Wardrobe, your majesty!”

Foltest covered Roche’s mouth with his hand, ignoring the panicked jolt as he tried again to make a move for his clothes.

“Coming, Anton,” he called back, “Give me a moment.”

“Very good sir.”

Footsteps padded away, but not far enough. He thrust against Roche’s ass once more, for good measure, enjoying the way the man’s whole body shook as he did. 

Only then did he release him, and let them both scramble for their clothes.

\---

“Your most royal highness,” murmured the regal dark-haired woman, curtsying deeply, “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”

The baroness La Valette’s voice rumbled through her formalities as low as a man, with a sultry sort of stickiness on the vowels. In the wide, vaulted ballroom, she burned larger than life, pulling all licking gossip, all slanting cat-eyes into her orbit. The court revolved around her. What was a backwater barony to a woman who could have been a queen?

With dark hair piled high on her head, posture sterner than a soldier’s, and winking jewels that trailed down her corset, not a person in the room could ignore her.

Foltest gave her a perfunctory smile as she offered him her hand, but was caught momentarily by the sudden flash of dislike in her gaze. Here, on the far edges of his kingdom, he’d come to remind men of old friendships, not forge new enemies. _Hmm, that won’t do._

“A long journey, but worth it to see you, madam. I now regret the long years spent in the absence of such a wonder as yourself.”

The words fell off his tongue like so many coppers into a well, and he watched her face, the high blush on her cheeks, to see if they would work as intended. _Statecraft. Elaborate lying._

The Baroness, Louisa, was not so easily won.

“Hah! Fine words! Come back when you have learned how to fib well.”

She laughed at him, and swayed away, her bell-shaped skirt bearing her away, chariot-like, into the whirling crowds. Foltest watched her go, thoroughly perplexed by the interaction.

“A spitfire, isn’t she?”

The baron, to his left, had been more receptive than his wife, probably due to being at least 15 years her senior. Younger women with old husbands had a habit of being high strung.

“Indeed,” he hummed, smiling to the Baron genuinely, this time. “I knew a woman like her once. Devil of a girl.”

The baron answered him, but he lost the thread of the conversation as Marigold whirled up in some daring dress that left her breasts more out than in, and commandeered the Baron. She had a way of knowing when he couldn’t be trusted to continue talking, which he appreciated for Temeria’s sake.

Usually he minded more than he did now, but this meant he was momentarily free to watch the dancers, and to his own thoughts.

He watched Louisa La Valette twist and out of her partner’s arms, pepper in her step, crisp and effortless in the way that belied great effort indeed. Something about her reminded him of Roche, of the way he fought, how he moved.

Unforgiving, every step intentional, uncompromising. She never set her foot or turned her hand in a way she didn’t mean to—and dancing was no far cry from fencing. He could easily imagine this woman with a sword; formidable indeed.

Roche would like her, he decided. Maybe he should introduce them… Although the baron might not appreciate his wife getting recruited to the Temerian Special Forces.

The inverse, too, might apply—could Roche dance? The thought thoroughly distracted him until Marigold patted his arm firmly.

“It’s time to meet the Viscount. Are you ready? Remember, he likes hunting, especially boars, hawking, and his dogs are the love of his life. Compliment his tunic if you can, his mistress wove it herself.”

She swept him away to his next diplomatic conquest, and he made a note to save the concept of _dancing_ for later.

\---

One week into a three-week “socialization campaign,” and Foltest dearly wished he was conquering these lands all over again. Fire, sword, battle tents, men vomiting into the canvas in the middle of the night, anything would be preferable to this mad caper of petty and silk.

“Can’t we just lay siege and be done with it?” he said petulantly to Marigold one afternoon. “I’d rather set Maravel’s chicken coops ablaze and deal with the aftermath than spend another moment hearing stories about Speckles the Magnificent.”

She lifted dark eyelashes from across the table to look at him impassively.

“Don’t let Maravel hear you say that. Also, sorry, but wars are expensive.”

“Hmph. I know.”

“We’re not halfway done, so you’ll have to find some way to cope.”

“I have business to attend to at my own castle.”

“What’s there that can’t be done here?”

His mind supplied a very graphic visual of parted asscheeks and slicked fingers, but he said only, “Paperwork.”

Marigold looked away from him to gaze at the fire, her cheeks a rising pink in the stuffy room.

“Should have brought it,” she said. “You have the free time.”

“With my evening tortures? A man can only work so much. You sorceresses are cruel mistresses indeed.”

She laughed at him, a high tinkling sound.

“There is no pleasing you, is there?”

He shrugged, this felt self-evident.

“Well,” she said, rising, “I will leave you to your discontent. Tomorrow we meet the Duke Thomas, so please read the file I gave you. He’s thirteen, so he may have some hobbies that interest you.”

“Like licking snails?”

She turned at the door, her little heels clicking against the stone. Her hand on the latch, she paused, and then turned to him.

“This a small sacrifice for much long-term gain, you know that."

Foltest nodded, trying not to look as sour as he felt. _All the money and power in the world and all your efforts go to keeping it that way. What a waste, really._

When he did not respond, she sighed and added, almost as an afterthought, “I’m sure Commander Roche will be glad to see you when you return.”

Foltest’s head snapped up and he stared at her. He didn’t mind, per se, but they had tried to be at least something akin to discreet.

“What?"

“Commander Roche. Always seems eager to see you. I’m sure he’ll be glad to have you back when you return, that’s all.”

He stopped mid-thought, the issue of _how_ she knew now far less important than _what_ she knew. Blood pounded in his ears, and he felt as though he was falling from a great height.

“What makes you say that?”

She rolled her eyes, apparently oblivious to his blooming crisis. _Eager._ The word rang over and over, like a horrible gong.

“I have eyes, Foltest. And the boy had no family before you took him in, it’s a simple matter of psychological arithmetic.”

When he did not answer, she shook her head at him with a smile.

“Have it your way. I’ll see you this evening… Please read the file.”

She left him there alone by the fire, words still stinging in his ears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's art! Check out the delightful illustration based on this chapter by @nultanol here: [Twitter](https://twitter.com/nultanol/status/1321282885933031426).


	9. Chapter 9

Fear.

Dark, rank, inescapable. It bubbled in his gut all the rest of that fortnight, like so much beer on the fire, turning over and over without end. Whether he slept or ate, toured castles or rode alone, danced with men and women alike or listened with all the interest he could muster, it gave him no peace. 

The images, scenes, snippets flickered over and over on themselves, whether he willed it or no. Roche, refusing to bow, cursing in his very presence, deliberately misinterpreting his orders. _How could any man say a fiend like that wanted anything from anyone? Fools._ He nearly snapped the courtier’s hand he held in two, and returned only a tight-lipped smile when the man pulled his hand back, shaking.

Fury filled him more than once, at pretty little Marigold’s smiles, too _. How dare she? She knows nothing of what may pass between a man and other men._ Once, however, she stopped to gather flowers by the side of their path, and brought them to Kiera Metz, who braided them into her hair. At that, his anger faded away. _She is just a child, with a child’s sensibilities. Her words mean nothing, let them go._

But in the dark of the night, canvas flapping above him, he could not. Linen shirt plastered to his back, he rolled over in his furs again and again, listening to the clank of the watch on their rounds.

Commander of the blue stripes, murderer, torturer, pacifier of Mahakam, Scoia'tael hunter. Cruel eyes, sharp nose crooked with a half-dozen breaks, filthy mouth—in more ways than one. _He has done more in half a life than most men do in their whole time on this earth. For money, he has all he could want and more, for love, he could have any man, for vices, he is given neither to fisstech or to drink. What is it that he wants?_

“Nothing,” he said firmly to the night. “He wants for nothing.”

This, again, should have satisfied. And yet, sleep evaded him still for a long time.

\---

Foltest rode slowly in the heart of his column all the long way back, half-listening to the commentary around him, turning his thoughts over and over with no end like a hog on a spit.

A killer, a hunter, young or not Roche was dangerous. Unlike anyone else, all of them soft in those castle walls. _Desperate for the merest grasp of the hem of my garment. I could leave him and he would thank me and go back to what he was doing whistling a merry tune._

_Would he?_

“Yes, fuck you, _please_ —”

The desperation in his voice when he had begged, the high whine when he had fucked him, the shy turn of his head away, as though he was not worthy— Foltest snapped the thought off there, too terrible to go any further with it. At the time, it had been unbearably hot: the capture, subjection, ownership of what could not be owned. But if it was real…

 _Perhaps… Perhaps not._ He knew no more what to do with the walls of Vizima looming before them, than he had at the border trapped in a too-small room, in a too-small castle, with a child duke.

 _Roche, Roche will be here. He will be waiting, he will put things to rights. The moment I see him all this will fall away._ Yet he half-hoped he wouldn’t be there, not yet. _Be out, killing for me._ Every moment he didn’t have to look at him was a moment he did not have to know.

In the yard of the royal palace, he looked around, and when he saw no trace of blue, no bright ardor waiting for him like a blushing maiden, he let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. _How foolish._

He wanted to laugh at himself, this bedtime fear brought to the light of day. Of course, he isn’t here. Perhaps now I shall find him.

Teeth bared with anticipation of the hunt, he turned for the training yard—

“Sire, shall I call session?”

Keira Metz’s voice caught him back, tight as a collar and leash. The kingdom, the kingdom, think of the kingdom— _fuck the kingdom._

“No, not now,” he said, without turning, “Deal with it later.”

“Respectfully, sire, we should convene today before sundown. It is necessary when you consider—”

“All right, we’ll convene,” he snapped, more cruelly that he’d meant.

He turned around in time to see the hurt on her face, the need for approval flickering away as soon as he met her eyes. But it was still there, and it only irritated him further.

“An hour,” he added, addressing all of his council that was still present as grooms took over horses and staff began to unload. “Take an hour to yourselves and then session begins anew.”

“We have much to discuss,” added Keira.

Before the murmurs of assent had faded, he had slipped from the crowd before his guard could discover him.

\---

In the training yard, the Blue Stripes smacked wood and steel together with a ferocity that would have anyone concerned about the structural integrity of both men and weapon. From cover to cover they wound, hips back, folded at the waist, each movement seeking the over-bind with parry and press. In long rows, pairs of men (and that one woman) drove each other down the yard and back, seeking openings with attack and defense.

The stripes never had been ones for uniformity—the weapons here mixed severely, a longsword paired against buckler and axe, a pair of smallswords against a poleaxe.

At their head, Roche barked orders with a dry expression, heckling lightly each time someone got hit.

“Don’t stick it out if you don’t want it cut off!”

Though most of the men looked older than him, all listened, and all followed his orders as best as they seemed able. It was a devotion not often seen in the army. Soldiers, at least in Foltest’s experience, usually discovered that the bar was on the ground, and then set about digging. 

“Fuck, Igo, you’ll lose an eye like that. Shoulder rotation!”

Foltest stepped from the shadows and leaned against the side of the barn, allowing himself to be seen for only a moment before Roche’s eyes flickered to him and quickly back to his men. His expression did not falter, but his next order was to Ves alone.

“Ves. You’re up.”

In moments, the young blonde woman led the exercises, calling cuts and guards with a vicious pace that truly should not have surprised him, and Roche was slipping along the side of the barn. Foltest avoided his gaze, and pushed open the barn door. He scanned the straw, the snorting horses who side-eyed him with disinterest: They were alone.

His heart hammered in his chest, though he didn’t know why. If asked, he couldn’t have told why he came here first, either. It was simply… _I am the king. I do not wait for what I want._ A child’s logic, and he knew it, even then, but the fear that drove him here knew no master.

He peered at Roche’s face as he slipped inside, sweat stained in the dark barn as the door closed behind him, looking for—something.

Oblivious, Roche dropped to his knees in the straw and began to work at Foltest’s belt. Kneeling between travel-stained boots, on filthy straw, blue fabric plastered to skin, he looked every inch the intense, passionate lover Foltest remembered. Nothing too strange, nothing dangerous, yet...

His breath already came quickly, gaze hungry, starving, looking up at Foltest. _Like a dog for its master._

“Not even a hello?” Foltest choked out, trying for levity.

“Missed you,” purred Roche, the hot, searing adoration in his eyes too much, too much. “I did some thinkin’, and—"

Foltest stumbled backwards and swatted his hands away and the young man’s expression changed immediately. He sank back on his heels in the straw.

“What is it?”

Foltest shook his head, unable, unwilling to answer _. Like a dog with its tail between its legs, more like. How could I have not seen it before?_

“What are you doing?” he ground out, refastening his belt. He could not look at him.

Roche got up, real fear in his voice, a crease through his eyebrows. There were dark circles under his eyes, all purple and shadow, belying all the rest of his life, kept carefully from the king’s eyes.

“Just happy you’re back,” he said, carefully. The nonchalance came out too studied, too perfect.

_Ah, there he is. My perfect spy. Of course it was a performance. Of course._

Foltest’s stomach turned. He heard nothing but the whining of a thousand courtiers, the sly look of a kitchen maid with something to prove. Nothing like Adda, who had never once needed or wanted anything from him in her whole short life.

_I had to beg for her time, and this one comes to me as a dog to heel. Always first to my side, and last to leave. And still it took a sorceress to see it, fool that I am._

“Not now,” he said, with a clear, cold voice that was not his own.

The sudden, sharp pain on Roche’s face helped nothing and no one.

“Leave me,” said Foltest.

Roche did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Definitely misapplying my knowledge of western martial arts here.


	10. Chapter 10

After the last brown leaves have fallen, when ice winds blow and even monster flanks grow gaunt with hunger, poverty falls as a heavy yoke on the weak among us.

In his grey hut stripped of even shoe leather, pantry filled with so much dust and children purple-cheeked with want, a man may say to himself, “Woe is me, for it is my station in life that has cursed me with hunger!”

Perhaps he is right.

When he breathes his last peasant breath and the children stand over him too scared to speak, the king on the hill suffers no such thing. He eats a small supper, with a light wine—as befits the circumstance—and grieves for the fatherless children. But it is winter, and even the royal table is light. What can he do but survive?

Still, a king will see the springtime blush over the hills when many others have gone back to the frozen dirt of their fathers. 

So it is that some hate the rich man, and curse his name. But if we had no kings, who would be left to lay dust on the bones of the dead?

\---

Red rolled the wine on the rim of the golden cup, and Foltest licked at it, careless of the looks of his tablemates or the quiet, silent scorn of his maids.

Was he not the king? Could he not do as he wished?

The bones crunched in his mouth, and he could not have told if they were pheasant or chicken, turkey or grouse. Hot fat slipped and slid over his lips, dripping down his chin in his blind haste, and he did not bother to wipe it off. It was only a sensation, slick and warm, and one was no different from another.

He knew they were laughing at him, inside their wise and haughty faces. They did not know, any of them. They still thought it was a fine thing indeed to rule, and not the slow death of all that a man might ever love.

 _We wear the crown, so that they do not have to._ The words came as bereft as comfort as ever they had.

 _What have any of these fools given for Temeria?_ Foltest looked around the table at their wide cheeks, their fastidious bites, hearing the careful way they spoke to each other, saying both too much and nothing at all at the same time.

 _Once, I gave everything_ , he thought, a vague smear of Adda in his mind, although what exactly that sacrifice had been, he could not have said. _As did she, and then some._ _And he…_ He could not finish the thought.

He had not spoken to Roche since that day in the barn, nor given any signs or signifiers. He did not intend to—a king was not made to explain himself, after all. He could not look at the boy, not think of him now, without seeing need, how it dripped from every pore.

To his credit, since he sent him away, Roche had not pressed the matter further. 

In fact, Roche had changed naught in word or deed. He still sent his intelligences, still reported on the ingenuities of himself and his men, sent over his invoices, requested regular audiences, everything. All that a good soldier might do, he did. And no more.

The only difference was that Foltest refused all of them. The reports he sent to Marigold, the audiences he simply declined.

He’d said that whatever passed between them would change nothing, but he found it more and more a lie in his mouth. He found it far harder to perform his duty than Roche did, it seemed. He’d not seen him, but he knew the man worked at all hours, wrote more than he slept and ate put together, and managed a growing list of informants that kept Temeria safe.

 _Roche keeps my word for me, whether I like it or no._ The man’s faithfulness chafed at him like a wet sock slipping down into his boot.

Not a single report of his vices, or his seeking solace in another’s arms—not that Foltest had asked.

Not that it mattered.

He wished, in his heart of hearts, that Roche was just slightly worse at his job. He would like to fight a war right about now. Clear objectives, everybody on the same side, clean morning air and a sword in your hand to make right the sins of the world.

As the bevy of advisors, councilors, and other hangers-on rose to the sound of the next bell, Marigold lingered behind. She tried for subtlety, diving under the table for a napkin, re-tying her little frills, but he knew better. _I am not so senile as all that._ He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, but the room still spun with the wine at his elbow, and he was not ready for her little voice to chime.

“My king, a word?"

“You will have your word whether I like it or no, and you know that. Speak.”

She blushed a little at that— _good for her_ —and continued.

“You have not taken to your horse or hounds recently, I’ve noticed. Nor your steels, though Bronibor is dying for a rematch. In fact, you seem rather down. Is something... amiss?”

He blinked at her. 

“I am fine.”

“Foltest. Please. You can tell me. I’m here to listen.”

She batted her little eyelashes, and Foltest wondered not for the first time how old this woman actually was. While she navigated political intrigue impeccably, if with some naivety, she also chased butterflies, picked flowers by the armful. And offered her ear for his troubles like a girl.

He just snorted at her.

“You’re not ready for all that, I think.”

To her credit, she did not argue, but inclined her head slightly.

“I don’t blame you. But you should have someone who can listen.”

That was worth a laugh, a surprised bubble up from the gut that felt almost foreign after so much time, and the tension in his shoulders eased, just a little.

She just shook her head at him when he did not answer, but smiled anyway. 

“All right. Have your way. But you’ve been awfully sour lately. If you won’t ride, you should at least have company, a few visitors to liven up your days in that stuffy office.”

She paused, and tilted her head to the side in that little way she had.

“How about the La Valettes? You seemed to enjoy their company. And the Baron would be an excellent man to count among your closest.”

The baron? The baron had not been the highlight of La Valette castle.

He hummed, and leaned back in his chair.

“If you arrange for it, and they’re willing.”

“I can, and I suspect they will be. The Baroness is a delightfully energetic woman.”

He closed his eyes, and saw again the quick, purposeful turn of her heel, the knot of dark hair turned away from him as he was found wanting.

He hummed again, wine pounding behind his eyes, begging a distraction from the weight in his chest.

“Invite them.”


	11. Chapter 11

Months later, in the castle courtyard, Vernon Roche stood under the cherry trees in the dread of winter. No wind shook the barren branches, and no breath of air disturbed the snow-dusted flagstones. High above, on the balcony connected to the royal suites, laughter echoed out over the still stone.

A woman’s laughter.

Frozen under the trees, Roche did not stir. His gaze drew up, and up, higher than the curve of the balcony, to where the blue banner starred with white lilies flew over the tower.

 _I will serve him however he needs_ , he knew, the words firm and settled in the hollow of his heart.

 _And this, this is what he needs from me now._ The thought was not bitter, nor resentful. It was only right that a king should take a woman, for Temeria’s sake if nothing else. He understood.

There was no place for a soldier in the bedroom of a king.

 _For Temeria._ The thought filled him to overflowing, warm and whole as an embrace.

He turned, and returned to his post.


End file.
